Just in time for the holidays, Joe Perry has released his recordings of four Christmas classics. Joe Perry’s Merry Christmas features “White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” and “Run Run Rudolph” with Johnny Depp on rhythm guitar.
You can check out the brand-new music video for “Run Run Rudolph” below.
The EP is available now at Unison and on iTunes. The release follows on the heels of Perry’s autobiography, Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith, published this past October.
“I have wanted to do a Christmas CD with Aerosmith for years, but it seems we never have the time to record one,” Perry says. “When my Rocks book tour ended, the timing was right—we were in L.A. with access to a studio with some really talented friends, and it all fell together. I was finally able to record some Christmas classics for the fans.”
Two of the songs—”Silent Night” and “White Christmas”—are treated as instrumentals, while the others feature vocals.
“The two instrumentals are among the 10 most popular Christmas songs,” Perry explains. “Almost everyone knows the lyrics to ‘Silent Night’ and ‘White Christmas,’ so we treated them as songs that people could sing along to, while staying close to the classic versions everyone knows. The two vocal songs, ‘Santa’s Back in Town’ and ‘Run Run Rudolph,’ are rockers made famous by Elvis and Chuck Berry. They are probably less well known, so you would have to hear the lyrics to know they are Christmas songs. They are two of my favorite holiday songs.”